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Lezli Engelking

Lezli Engelking is the founder of FOCUS, the Foundation of Cannabis Unified Standards. She is striving to set up underwriting, Quality Assurance, and Quality Control standards for the marijuana production industry.

Lezli possesses more than two decades of professional experience across cannabis, government relations, pharmaceutical, mental health, and nonprofit industries. More than twelve years with Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals laid the perfect foundation for Lezli’s role as Executive Director of the first chain of vertically integrated medical cannabis operations in Phoenix, Arizona. Lezli’s proven success in the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, combined with her firsthand experience working in the nascent cannabis industry, provided the perfect experience to create Foundation of Cannabis Unified Standards (FOCUS).

Established in 2014 as a 501c3, not-for-profit, Cannabis Health and Safety Organization, FOCUS was created to address the many short comings in quality, safety, and consistency that became evident with the explosive growth of the global cannabis industry. FOCUS is an international cannabis standards development and third-party certification organization dedicated to protecting public health, consumer safety, and safeguarding the environment. FOCUS is not a cannabis company, an industry trade association, nor an advocacy organization. FOCUS is an unbiased, third-party with no financial stake in – or funding from – the cannabis industry. FOCUS does not advocate on behalf of or push cannabis policy. FOCUS exists to help assure the rapidly growing global cannabis industry has the necessary protections in place for the health, safety, success, and welfare of everyone. This autonomy fosters a principled, objective environment that serves end users, and acts as the much-needed bridge between industry and regulatory.